Download - Royal Australian Navy

honour
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It is important to remember that honour is multi-dimensional. It is based not on a
definitive quality, but upon a ‘constellation of independent and non-specific virtues,
which have particular relevance in the context of military service. Moral virtue is
intermingled with physical prowess, in a construct of martial honour which demands
considerable sustained effort, and which encourages pride in practised talent and
professional judgement. 14 Honour, therefore, connects morally to unique situations
in a way that explicit rules can never approach. Honour informs integrity, shaping
conscience and influencing notions of pride, self-respect and shame. Thus, honour can
often operate as a more authoritative concept than notions of legality, identifying ‘the
proper course’ when rules, regulations or laws offer uncertain guidance. Clausewitz,
for example, described ‘military virtue’ as transcending the ‘vanity of an army held
together merely by the glue of service-regulations and a drill book’.
Such a sense of honour is not capable of precise definition, yet it is a powerful term which
enables us to understand something of the moral meaning of naval life. Australia aspires
to be a nation that stands proud and respected among the free people of the world, and
with its global reach the RAN will remain one of the key tools in achieving this aim. We
will continue to face many challenges, but these will not only include direct assaults on
our sovereignty. Threats to our collective ideals and the principles which underpin our
Australian way of life may be equally prevalent. Honour is therefore very much more
than a redundant ideal, out of place amid the indiscriminate violence of the modern
world. Our nation and our Service both expect us to maintain what has been achieved
and by our deliberate efforts and career example give no cause for our friends and allies
(and even our opponents) to have anything but the highest regard for RAN personnel.
Notes
1
Royal Australian Navy, Navy Values: Serving Australia with Pride, Canberra, September 2009.
2
Royal Australian Navy, Lectures Suitable for Junior Officers and Petty Officers, vol. 1, lecture
13, 1922, p. 4, held in Sea Power Centre - Australia archive.
3
C von Clausewitz, On War, Penguin, London, 1982 reprint, pp. 138, 146, & 155.
4
Royal Australian Navy, Navy Values.
5
MJ Osiel, Obeying Orders: Atrocity, Military Discipline and the Law of War, Transaction, New
Brunswick, 1999, p. 14.
6
Clausewitz, On War, p. 149.